“A three-judge district court panel ruled Friday that the state’s new block grant system of funding schools is unconstitutional, and it ordered the state to immediately pay nearly $49.6 million to local school districts to restore money that was cut from the current year’s budget when lawmakers passed a new school funding system in March.
“The state also will have to add that much each of the next two years, the court said.
“The court also struck down key provisions of the new law that change the way certain kinds of ‘equalization’ aid for general operations and maintenance is distributed to local districts, and it did so in a way that appears to put the old formulas back in place, despite the fact that those old formulas were specifically repealed by the Legislature.
“But the court did not order a specific remedy on the much larger, and costlier, issue about the overall adequacy of the state’s $4 billion public education budget. Although the panel reaffirmed its earlier decisions that overall funding is unconstitutionally low — possibly by as much as $500 million a year or more — it delayed ordering a remedy pending an automatic appeal to the Kansas Supreme Court.”
Read more here: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/jun/26/kansas-court-rules-against-parts-state-school-fund/